The hole columns of the palace of Nursultan

Pope Francis’ journey to Kazakhstan, from Tuesday September 13 to Thursday September 15, was clearly marked by his speeches, his requires peace or his condemnations of all spiritual extremism. However the locations the place the pope went had been additionally revealing, in a way, of one other facet of this “pilgrimage of peace in Central Asia”. Beginning with the large presidential palace, the Pope’s first stopover, simply after his arrival in Noursultan, the brand new title of the Kazakh capital often known as Astana three years in the past.

A palace whose corridor is straight away placing, with its troopers lined up at consideration and able to sing the nationwide anthem, with its marble, its three big crystal chandeliers and its hole columns. Behind their paint imitating white marble streaked with black to close perfection, these columns, surmounted by a capital itself embellished with a number of gildings, are the truth is solely a dummy decoration, which the customer rapidly notices has the thought – actually, a bit absurd – of constructing them resonate.

The hole columns of the palace are a bit just like the impression that town might have on those that crossed it, rapidly after all, for 3 days, following the pope. François additionally traveled by this capital, with its skyscrapers set on the steppe, with out actually having the ability to meet its inhabitants, typically following a inflexible protocol by which the federal government tried to lock him up.

The Kazakh President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, needed to take full benefit of the go to. A couple of weeks earlier than early elections, known as ” in autumn “he can pleasure himself on having introduced a world determine to his nation. Nevertheless it doesn’t forestall that the political restoration is not going to make phantasm. It sounds a bit hole, just like the columns of the presidential palace.